Virginia Poundstone: Flower Mutations

May 3, 2015 to October 25, 2015 |

Virginia Poundstone’s practice spans photography, sculpture, video, and installation, and is exclusively focused on the history and botany of the flower and its socio-economic and cultural significance. Her exhibition at The Aldrich is dedicated to two important sources of inspiration: Giacomo Balla’s series of Futurist Flowers and traditional American flower-pattern quilts. Poundstone debuts a new outdoor sculpture, Quilt Square (Tulip) (2015), and an earthwork, Tulips (2014–15), on the Museum’s grounds; in an interior room, artworks and objects investigate the visual representation of flowers through abstraction in art and design.

The outdoor sculpture, a geometric flower in stone and glass, is based on the geometry of a traditional quilt pattern. Placed in the interior courtyard, where it is visible from within the Museum’s Leir Atrium, it is seen for a fleeting period in relation to a field of colorful tulips (more than three thousand bulbs were planted in eight dynamic hues) that form a resplendent garden across the sloping grassy embankment. Inside the Museum’s expansive Project Space and Balcony Gallery, visitors encounter a new glass sculpture by Poundstone, as well as a monumental wall print of Rainbow Rose (2013), alongside seminal inspirational works by artists that span generations and art historical movements. Adjacent to these influential works, on loan from institutions around the country, she also includes objects from her own collection.

Amy Smith-Stewart, Senior Curator.

Virginia Poundstone was born in 1977 in Great Lakes, Illinois, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.